What goes down must come up?!?

Monday, June 16, 2008
Cabanaconde, Colca Canyon, Peru
We arrived at the Colca Canyon after 5 hours on a local bus. The first 3 hours were on a paved road but constant switchbacks to make it up and down the mountains. The last 2 hours the ride became a back breaking, bumpy ride on a dirt road that if you looked at it you wouldn´t think a bus should be able to go on this road. When we finally arrived, we had a quick bite to eat and headed out to the path that lead us down the Colca Canyon. There are little towns perched on the sides of mountains. The people that live there have to walk at least 4 hours just to get to where there is a car or shop. Needless to say, they are very independent. They farm most of what they eat. It blew my mind to see digital electricity boxes on all the home and even satelite dishes on some of them. And they are completely set up for tourists now. We got to a hostel and had a room all to ourselves. It was a mud hut but it was quiet, until the dogs decided to have a conversation at 1:30am. It seemed to go on forever.
We woke up and continued our trek down the canyon until we reached this oasis at the bottom. There are a few camping ground type places but they all have pools. We hung around the pool for a couple of hours comtemplating the long hike up.
Here are the stats: the top of the canyon is at 3400m above sea level. The bottom of the canyon is at 2200m above sea level. That is 1200m straight out of a canyon. Just to put this into perspective, to climb the CN tower is only 342m. Now climb it 4 times plus add on a couple of km in switchbacks and uneven steps, rocks and scree. It took us 3 hours to get out. My calves are still paying for it. We saw some people cheat and take horses on the way up. We are too stubborn for that. We rewarded ourselves with ice cream.
The next morning we went to an area of the canyon where condors catch the warm air streams and soar very close to the top of the canyon. It was quite a sight to see the massive birds flying by.
We also went to some hot springs on the way back to Arequipa. It really helped get rid of some of the stiffness in my body. I can´t imagine what I would have felt like without that relaxing bath.  

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